Adding to the growing pile (both in size and in lunacy) of amicus briefs filed in support of the Prop 8 Proponents, today we have Ed Whelan of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Mat Staver and his merry crew at Liberty Counsel.

Whelan basically just whines about how Judge Walker was not fair!! There wasn’t much of interest in the he’s a big ol’ meanie brief, but the Liberty Counsel brief was a delight. Predictably, they thought it was a smart move to prove the judge’s point that the anti-gay marriage movement was motivated by fear and loathing of gay people.

II. SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS ARE DIFFERENT THAN OPPOSITE-SEX RELATIONSHIPS.

Wholly apart from the biological and procreative differences between opposite-sex and same-sex couples, the psychological and medical risks associated with the homosexual lifestyle are contrary to the district court’s conclusion that same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are, in essence, the same. (FF nos. 48, 70). It is well documented that those engaged in the homosexual lifestyle have much greater incidence of substance abuse, mental health problems, medical illness, and relationship dysfunctions. Documenting these facts, a recently published, peer-reviewed journal concludes that “it is difficult to find another group in society with such high risks for experiencing such a wide range of medical, psychological, and relational dysfunctions.” NARTH, 1 J. of Human Sexuality 1:53 (2009) (“Journal”).

In addition, “”30.3 percent of homosexually active women were ‘very high or drunk 3 or more days’ in the past year compared to 16.6 percent of heterosexual women,” and “8.4 percent of homosexually active women were ‘very high or drunk an average of once per week or more’ in the past year compared to 2.3 percent of heterosexual women.” Id. at 1:58.

Lesbians shouldn’t be allowed to marry; they’re all drunks! But if the women are all lushes, the men are all diseased:

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS among the homosexual community also is significantly higher than among heterosexuals. “In the 20th century, HIV/AIDS risk was approximately 430 times greater among homosexuals than among heterosexuals.” Id. at 1:66. In 2005, “the risks of acquiring HIV from a single act of unprotected sex within the male homosexual community in the United States remained about 500 times greater than within the heterosexual community.” Id. “Lifetime prevalence for STDs in homosexual men was 75 percent compared with 16.9 percent for heterosexual men.” Id.

It’s amazing how much bile you can spew when your source is NARTH. I can just see Charles Cooper cringing at the idea of the Ninth Circuit judges reading this recitation of bigotry and spite.

Part II of this exercise in animus is dedicated to presenting the NARTHian models of what causes homosexuality.

Here we find that “the family pattern involving a combination of a dominating, overly intimate mother plus a detached, hostile or weak father is beyond doubt related to the development of male homosexuality” (though a “sports wound” might contribute as well). As for the drunk lesbians, “a narcissistic (self-absorbed) mother may interfere with her daughter’s separation and individuation and propel her in the direction of lesbianism, but severe hurt by a male may also communicate the same message of insecurity and vulnerability.”

Well that sounds to me like a good reason to ban heterosexual marriage. Or at least procreation. Yikes.

But, having just trashed heterosexual parents, this brief then argues that it is precisely for the purpose of channeling procreation into these dysfunctional messes that marriage exists. So it is to Randy Thomasson and Arthur Goldberg that I dedicate this lovely picture of a pair of loons.

Would you consider doing one of your excellent thought pieces on the use and origins of the term “homosexual lifestyle”. That term is constantly thrown around by every single one of the anti-gay groups, and is used liberally and without definition in the brief discussed above. I can’t fathom what it is supposed to mean. Does it include everyone who has homosexual intercourse or is it meant to refer to homosexuals who are promiscuous and engage in other negative behaviors that are inherently linked in some way to homosexuality? I’d love to learn more about this because I don’t recognize being gay as a style of living.

I wonder why all the authoritative information contained in the flood of amicus briefs wasn’t presented at the trial. We know it existed because we’ve heard it all before. Gee, I wonder if the reason might be those little inconveniences of being under oath, and having to submit to cross-examination.

Theo, the short answer, it is designed to give the impression that homosexuality is a behavior, or collection of behaviors, that are changeable rather than a inborn orientation like handedness that is, though less common than heterosexuality, natural and morally neutral.

It’s a calculated attempt to sexualize the orientation so that when people think of homoSEXuals, they think of anal sex rather than ordinary people who live ordinary lives, sons/daughters, mothers/fathers, sisters/brothers, neighbors, coworkers, friends who are part of families and who have families of their own. It helps them promote the “ick factor” which is very important in their anti-gay campaign.

Well, I have no doubt about what they intend to imply when they use the term “lifestyle” and it is just as you say. But once you get beyond their attempts to imply certain things or evoke certain images and you call them on what the actual definition is, what do they say?

The other thing I have wondered about is who first came up with this odious term. I think, but am not certain, that it was actually 1970s gays who asserted that being gay was a “legitimate alternative lifestyle”, perhaps hoping to tap into the ethos of the early 1970s. But by 1977, Anita Bryant was using it and we opposed its usage. Seems to me that someone – whether Ms. Bryant or some gay hippy – should be held to account for birthing this atrocity.

I think the loading is something like this: a “way of life” has an ethos, a ‘morality’, a creed. In short, traditional religion. It has rigid forms people conform to and specific kinds of suffering they accept on a cost/benefit rationale and specific measures of success. And specific, unadmitted, limitations.

A “lifestyle” is perceived to be a negation of the whole concept and worldview. Life lived in transgression of the established “way of life”.

It’s not just gay-ness per se that makes the “gay lifestyle” such a bugaboo. It’s that gay people largely have to live in Modern forms while they themselves live lives tacitly and often unknowingly constructed around Agrarian Age tenets that are incompatible with real respectability in our times. Such as fertility cultism, Biblical literalism, sacred materialism of other kinds, supernaturalism, etc. Gay people involuntarily manifest a critique of the ordering of their lives they find hard to bear.

Upon these contentions, if any group, African Americans for example, should suffer say, a higher incidence of high blood pressure, drug abuse, or poverty, then this might be used as arguement to prevent Their ability to Marry as a class of citizend, as an interest in the (majority) public good, although their rights to participate in the sexual practices of their choice in the privacy of their homes may have been previously upheld by the Supreme Court.

During the late 50’s and early 60’s when our country was finally confronting Jim Crow and it’s attendant brutality, those resistant to integration did EXACTLY what the anti gay are doing to connect black sexuality to immorality, immaturity and lack of respect for marriage.
Marriage records, and birth records were the only statistical information that could be obtained about blacks. But marriage rates were very low, compared to whites. And out of wedlock births quite high.
And still are to this day among blacks.

This information was used as a means of ‘proving’ that blacks didn’t care for, and had no respect for marriage. And slave records, were also put before law makers as a way of also proving that blacks birth and marriage situation hadn’t improved or changed, even though marriage was available to them.

The legislators in Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama, tried to institute a marriage ban on blacks who had EVER had children out of wedlock and/or cohabited without being married.

Of course, they are leaving out a big, gaping context to why such disparity in marriage and non married births exist among such a small minority of people.

Discrimination and it’s effect on economic equality played a big part in the disruption of the black nuclear family. Economic injustice made black men, and whole ghettoized communities, vulnerable to criminal behavior and it’s attendant risks and results.
Black people, AS a minority, couldn’t and didn’t have the economic and social justice support and integration NEEDED to keep a viable enterprise zone viable. In other words, blacks could not maintain an economic system healthy all on their own. And no one would work with blacks, further creating a profound separation other groups didn’t have.

Abuses by the medical establishment and lack of being able to afford better medical care, created a tragic confluence to this day where infection rates, addiction and preventable disease disable or kill blacks at higher rates than whites.

This is all familiar territory for another marginalized minority that are gay folks and parallels the black experience in America.

This is where legitimate discussion on how the effects of social injustice can take generations to heal, or may never heal, unless that injustice is acknowledged and done away with.
Gays are not the new blacks in such simple terms.
But gay people have been TREATED like blacks (or Jews and women) in similar ways enough to show that the results of their treatment have similar consequences.

It doesn’t have to be EXACTLY the same. But laws against gay people having any similarity to Jim Crow is a shame on our nation and a drag on it’s progress and a contradiction of it’s own moral creed of equality for otherwise productive citizens.

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.